Apr 02 Thursday
Facilitator: Anne Freiermuth, CPA
Understanding the unique accounting principles and requirements that apply to nonprofits is critical for your mission to succeed. This four module seminar series will introduce students to the basic accounting concepts relevant to nonprofit organizations. Participants will be exposed to foundational accounting principles and their practical applications. This will include understanding cash vs. accrual basis, the matching principle, fund accounting, functional allocations, and how to read and prepare financial statements.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
Series participants will be introduced to fundamental accounting rules (generally accepted accounting principles) and financial reports of nonprofit organizations.Series participants will analyze which transactions get recorded in the accounting system and how.Series participants will be able to recognize allocation methodologies and how they impact financial statements and external oversight.Series participants will be able to record common accounting transactions.MODULE OVERVIEW:
Module I: Introduction and Contributions AccountingWednesday, Mar 18 | 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Module II: Internal Controls, Fixed Assets, Reading Financials, Allocating ExpensesThursday, Mar 19 | 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Module III: Putting it all Together: Case Study Year OneWednesday, Mar 25 | 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Module IV: Putting It All Together: Case Study Year TwoThursday, Mar 26| 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.
LEVEL: Intro/Intermediate
TARGET AUDIENCE: Executive directors & CEOs, CFO’s, finance staff, Board treasurers and finance committees
Apr 08 Wednesday
Innovative and controversial, James Abbott McNeill Whistler was a figure of paradoxes. Born in the small town of Lowell, Massachusetts, he will become one of the most influential expatriate artists of the late 19th century, splitting his time between London and Paris and traveling the world. Although dedicated to realism and painting the world he knew, he will become a leading figure in the Aesthetic Movement and have a lasting impact on modernism. This lecture will chart Whistler's career and his revolutionary emphasis on art just to be enjoyed just to be enjoyed for its aesthetic appeal.
This lecture can be attended either in-person at the Thousand Oaks campus or virtually via Zoom. Walk-ins are not permitted.
The Fifty and Better (FAB) program was designed for people ages 50 and older, seeking intellectual stimulation through university-level courses — without the pressure of grades — for the sake of learning and social engagement.
Is it time to develop the budget? The process of building and monitoring a budget is fundamental to an organization’s planning and financial oversight. It results in a useful tool -- one that can be used on an ongoing basis to anticipate problems and provide a baseline against which programmatic and financial performance can be assessed. In this course we will evaluate how to build a sound budget for managing your organization and explore examples on how this budget tool can be used to deal with multiple programs and multiple funding sources.
Learning Objectives:-How to build a budget for sound nonprofit financial management-How to utilize your budget to monitor actual performance
Audience: This workshop is great for Executive Directors, fund development professionals, program managers, board members, and anyone else doing budgeting for nonprofit organizations.
Apr 13 Monday
Artificial Intelligence often arrives in our lives wrapped in either hype or fear: Miraculous promises on one side, dystopian nightmares on the other. This lecture takes a different path. We will calmly and thoughtfully explore what AI actually is, what it is not, and why it matters deeply to people over 50—while remaining equally relevant to undergraduates and lifelong learners. The central message is simple: AI is not a replacement for wisdom, but a tool to enhance human enlightenment.
Through stories, demonstrations, graphics, short videos, and carefully chosen quotations from the pioneers of AI, the talk aims to show how AI can enhance creativity, productivity, learning, health, and connection—without surrendering autonomy or dignity. This lecture also endeavors to confront real potential dangers, including: over automation, bias, dependency, misinformation, and loss of meaning. Attendees will leave, hopefully not merely informed, but empowered, amused, and equipped with a practical framework for using AI wisely.
Apr 14 Tuesday
What can Shakespeare – or literature more generally – tell us about ethics? In the Pacific Views Talk for Spring 2026, Professor Jim Kearney (English) discusses the ways that Shakespearean theater invites its audiences to be entertained by the vicarious experience of the ethical, often ethics in some extreme or impossible circumstance.
What does it feel like to be enjoined to avenge your father’s death? What is it like to banish your daughter or disavow your community? To forgive the unforgivable? To murder? Shakespeare and his fellow early modern playwrights inherited and developed rhetorical and philosophical practices geared toward the creation of immersive virtual experience.
This talk approaches Shakespearean theater as a lab or platform in which the experience of ethics in extreme circumstances is simulated. Drawing on his new book Shakespearean Ethics in Extremity: Phenomenology, Theater, Experience (Oxford University Press, 2025), Kearney investigates Shakespeare’s attempts to capture – or conjure or discover or create – forms of what we might call ethical experience.
Jim Kearney is a Professor of English and Chair of the English Department at UCSB. He specializes in early modern literature with research interests that include ethical experience, the history of emotion, phenomenology (including the phenomenology of theater), various materialisms, religious identity and transformation, and the history of reading.
Kearney’s approximately 45-minute presentation will be followed by a Q&A session.
This event may be photographed or recorded.
Advance registration is recommended as space is limited.
Apr 15 Wednesday
In his short yet brilliant career of 10 years, Vincent van Gogh created hundreds of works of art and posthumously became one of the most famous Western painters and mainstays of modern art. Through the correspondence with his younger brother, art dealer Theo van Gogh, most of what is known of Vincent's thoughts, hopes, disappointments and struggles, and flashes of inspiration are recorded in the hundreds of letters they exchanged. As we view his work through the lens of his correspondence with his brother, we'll cover his work through his early years, through his focused studies on the South of France, and ultimately his tragic final period.
This lecture can be attended virtually via Zoom.
Apr 16 Thursday
Will your organization have enough cash to cover payroll next month? How about an unbudgeted expense or a fabulous new opportunity? Financial statements are important for board members and leadership to analyze the organization’s historical performance, but cash management is critical for day-to-day financial operations. In this class, we will learn how to develop a cash projection spreadsheet that can be updated regularly so you can successfully plan ahead and avoid surprises. Learning about cash projections is also a wonderful method to get familiar and comfortable with financials, because cash projections tend to be a more intuitive way of looking at financial information.
Learning Objectives:-Discover 3 methods of projecting future cash flows: mind dump, budget conversion, and hybrid-Analyze common differences between an accrual-based budget and a cash projection-Identity strategies for handling shortfall and windfalls
Apr 21 Tuesday
This lecture examines the themes and arguments in Eric Gamino’s Enforcing Order on the Border, exploring how law-enforcement agencies construct, maintain, and justify “order” in the border region. We will analyze the social, political, and historical forces that shape policing practices, the lived experiences of officers and migrants, and the mechanisms through which the border becomes a site of control, conflict, and negotiation. The session highlights how border enforcement reflects broader debates about national security, immigration policy, and state power.
Apr 22 Wednesday
As far as countries go, the United States is fairly young. Nevertheless, it has indeed made its own contributions to religion and spirituality. In this two-part lecture, we’ll examine what particular religious movements have developed in the United States, and we’ll see how those movements have affected the religious landscape in general. We’ll discuss William Miller and the beginning of the Adventists, we’ll consider Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism, and we’ll explore the Restoration movement and the two Great Awakenings. In all of these things, we will develop a stronger context for American religious life, and most importantly, better understand our own country.
This two-part lecture can be attended either in-person at the Thousand Oaks campus or virtually via Zoom. Walk-ins are not permitted.
Apr 28 Tuesday
The 2022 Russian invasion of the Ukraine shocked political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. In the prelude to the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Ukraine an “artificial” nation claiming that it had always been part of Russia. On what basis does he make this claim and what shapes Putin’s broader outlook about the place of Russia in the modern world. NATO and the United States in particular, have so far rejected military interventions and opted instead to use economic leverage in the form of sanctions and weapons supplies over direct action. Yet after four years of heavy fighting, casualties on both sides running into the hundreds of thousands, and billions in Western financial aid, there is still no end in sight. How should we think about the significance of this war, its causes and its meaning for the United States in the current state of world affairs? This course aims to provide attendees with an in-depth analysis of these questions. It offers insights on the roots of Russia’s war on Ukraine, where it stands today, and the consequences of its outcome for the future of American foreign policy.
This course can be attended either in-person at the Thousand Oaks campus or virtually via Zoom. Walk-ins are not permitted.
